I got out my copy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Before Pearl Harbour (in April), Hitler was urging Japan to attack Britain in the east. If America got caught in the crossfire, c’est la vie. In this process, Hitler causally made a secret pledge to Japan that if Japan got into a conflict with the US, Germany would “take the necessary steps.”
One of the problems with dictatorships is that you don’t have people to call you on your bullshit. Hitler did not think much of the US’ military power and thought it a weak and divided society (and he overestimated Japanese power).
Now Hitler was mercurial, and did not want the US in the war until he had finished with the USSR. In the April - November period, it was actually others pressing Hitler for action against the US; Admiral Raeder in particular wanted to be able to sink US ships and staunch the flow of Lend-Lease supplies to the UK.
“While we have had grave differences with the Americans in the past, I was horrified to see fellow Aryans attacked by Asian Untermenschen. "
This certainly wouldn't have worked - the Japanese were not viewed as Untermenschen, and were in fact Ehrenarier, honorary Aryans with equivalent legal position to Aryans in Germany.
Attacking shipping in the Western Atlantic, while the US Navy was in the Pacific, helped with the Battle of the Atlantic. The declaration of war was not the important thing. The drowning sailors were.
I got out my copy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Before Pearl Harbour (in April), Hitler was urging Japan to attack Britain in the east. If America got caught in the crossfire, c’est la vie. In this process, Hitler causally made a secret pledge to Japan that if Japan got into a conflict with the US, Germany would “take the necessary steps.”
One of the problems with dictatorships is that you don’t have people to call you on your bullshit. Hitler did not think much of the US’ military power and thought it a weak and divided society (and he overestimated Japanese power).
Now Hitler was mercurial, and did not want the US in the war until he had finished with the USSR. In the April - November period, it was actually others pressing Hitler for action against the US; Admiral Raeder in particular wanted to be able to sink US ships and staunch the flow of Lend-Lease supplies to the UK.
this train of thought only works if your ww2 understanding comes from a public school history book
Roosevelt was looking for any excuse to get America into the war, so I think the probability of that working would have been about 1%.
“While we have had grave differences with the Americans in the past, I was horrified to see fellow Aryans attacked by Asian Untermenschen. "
This certainly wouldn't have worked - the Japanese were not viewed as Untermenschen, and were in fact Ehrenarier, honorary Aryans with equivalent legal position to Aryans in Germany.
Attacking shipping in the Western Atlantic, while the US Navy was in the Pacific, helped with the Battle of the Atlantic. The declaration of war was not the important thing. The drowning sailors were.